Country United Kingdom
There is a particular kind of documentary I have a real soft spot for: the one that sets out with a clear mission, only to discover, in the making, that the film has quietly become about something else entirely. Sid Elbadawi's (Failing to Make) A Documentary About My
Country Japan
I came to Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing with a passing fondness for the sport and left it quietly amazed, both by what these athletes put their bodies through and by how beautifully Erik Shirai has captured it. This is a rich, intimate and genuinely illuminating documentary, one that gets further
Country United States Of America
Some of the most affecting films work on you like a held breath, and Listen is one of those. Taliesin Black-Brown's short documentary is a quiet, aching and genuinely beautiful piece about memory, love and the sounds that tether us to who we are, and in barely
Country Canada
I will be upfront about this one: Concrete Turned to Sand is a film built on an aesthetic I simply do not connect with, and no amount of good intentions could win me round. It is a slow, austere, deliberately anti-narrative piece of observational cinema, and while I can
Country Romania
Between Revolutions is a genuinely powerful and intelligent piece of work, and one I admired more than I was always able to lose myself in. Vlad Petri's documentary is a quietly ambitious thing: a history of two uprisings, the Iranian revolution against the Shah and the Romanian revolution
2020s
Every so often a documentary short comes along that reminds you how much can be achieved in under twenty minutes when a film-maker knows exactly what they are reaching for. Mars Verrone's Buckskin is one of those: a tender, beautiful and quietly educational portrait of the director&
Country Western Sahara
I have a real soft spot for films from Western Sahara, one of the rarest and most politically charged corners of world cinema, so I came to Wallace Minchong Li's Between Us and the World keen to like it. And there is a good deal to admire here,
Country Bermuda
There is a version of Bermuda that exists almost entirely on postcards, all pink beaches and pastel calm, and part of what makes Bermuda Riots Are Different worthwhile is how firmly it shoves that image aside. Co-directed by Alyson Thompson and Matt Mead, this six-minute documentary short digs
2020s
Kikuyu Land was, for me, one of the best documentaries of the year, a furious, beautiful and deeply personal film that traces an unbroken line from colonial land seizures in Kenya to the multinational tea estates still profiting from that soil today. You can read my full review here. It
2020s
Mon Taxi did something I do not often let short films do to me. It moved me. I will be honest here, the experimental, avant-garde documentary short is usually a form I admire more than I actually enjoy, all mood and montage with not much to hold onto. Meriem
2020s
Every so often a documentary comes along that feels less like a film and more like a piece of evidence, and Kikuyu Land is one of them. Directed by the Emmy winning Andrew H. Brown and the Kenyan journalist and film-maker Bea Wangondu, it is one of the most
Country United Kingdom
Bel was, for me, one of the most moving films of the year, a tender, aching portrait of the Scottish-Kenyan musician Beldina Odenyo, who recorded as Heir of the Cursed, built by director Louise Lockwood as something much closer to an act of love than a conventional documentary. You
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